Expansion and digression: A study in Mamlūk literary commentary

This study traces different manifestations of source-text (matn ) expansion within Mamlūk literary commentary (sharh ). First, several examples of traditional literary commentary on a single source-text, the ode known as Bānat Su\u27ād, are examined in order to determine how traditional commentary functions and the relation of the source-text to the commentary. It further examines how commentaries relate to earlier versions within the tradition. This is followed by studies of two examples of variations within the commentary style by a single author, Salāh al-Dīn Khalīl ibn Aybak al-Safadī (d. 1363). Each of these commentaries illustrates quite well, but in different ways, the meaning of sharh as expansion, both of the explication, but also of the matn itself. The first, Ikhtirā\u27 al-Khurā\u27, is a parody in the form of a commentary on two nonsense lines of poetry. Using deliberate error, al-Safadī engages the reader in a literary game, tempting the reader either to prove his knowledge of the Arabic literary tradition by catching the errors and finding them humorous, or to discover the larger Arabic cultural heritage by trying to trace all the misleading information. The second, al-Ghayth al-Musajjam fī Sharh Lāmīyat al-\u27Ajam, is an extremely digressive commentary on a 12th-century poem by Abū Ismā\u27īl al-Tughrā\u27ī (d. 1121). The digressions fragment and interrupt the source-text so frequently and at such length that the source-text itself nearly dissolves into the Arabic literary tradition more broadly understood. Al-Safadī explains his use of digression at the beginning of his commentary. His explanation combined with the way the commentary is structured, his method of analysis, and the variety of topics he includes brings the commentary close to Roland Barthes\u27 idea of the \u27writerly.\u27 As such, the text not only challenges readers, but draws them in and forces them to engage with the work and with the literary tradition as a whole, making them active in its creation